The Paid Holiday Song

The Paid Holiday Song

The Paid Holiday Song is a strange tradition practiced mainly by a small band of Old Soaks who were living in Manchester around the time that Al King started working for Cable and Wireless. (About 1998? I forget – it all blurs into one long hangover)

When Mr King realised that for the first time in his life he was going to be going on holiday and still get paid for it, he was (unsurprisingly) happy, and started singing to himself the words "I'm on a paid holiday!" over and over again to no specific tune. Other people picked up on this, and it became a bit of an institution amongst the clique, for whenever you had paid leave from your job.

In a fit of boredom inspired madness, your illustrious webmaster realised that the the theme tune from the old kids TV show Play-Away could be used to produce a more formal version of the song:

It doesn't matter if it's raining or it's fine,
Just as long as you've got time,
For P A I D – H O L I D A Y,
We're on a paid holiday!

But this hasn't caught on quite as well....